


Christmas with the Family

by Kittywitch



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Gen, I hope you enjoy it because I got a cavity writing it, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9084934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittywitch/pseuds/Kittywitch
Summary: Tegan notes that an ice planet looks Christmas-y. Instead of just explaining what that means, the Doctor takes it upon himself to expose his companions to Christmas. Mostly just wholesome family fluff, one line could be interpreted as slightly Nysric or just Nyssa and Adric being friendly. Written for Human-nxture for Classic Who Secret Santa: "The Fifth Doctor and his season 19 companions attempting to celebrate Christmas (either on Earth or inside the TARDIS)"





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [human-nxture](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=human-nxture).



            “What’s the dimensional tilt reading, Adric?” asked the Doctor. The boy looked away from his pad of paper, turned slightly to find the right readout, and tapped the screen slightly to make it legible.

            “Naught five zed by double six bee.” Adric read out.

            “And it’s supposed to be?”

            “Naught five ex by five six bee.” Adric replied sullenly. He frowned at the Doctor. “All the controls you told me to change have been changed. The trouble must be coming from your end!” The Doctor rolled his eyes and moved around the console to look at Adric’s end. He made a quiet noise of frustration, gently moved Adric out of the way, and twisted a dial a fraction of a turn.

            “There’s the problem, the backward drift isn’t even enabled.”

            “You didn’t say to adjust the backward drift!” Adric protested. “I thought you specifically told me _not_ to touch the backward drift.”

            “Not to touch the backward drift after you’d set it to fourteen degrees.” the Doctor corrected, vaguely aware he might not have actually said that part aloud. He took a step away from Adric and placed his hand on the final lever.

            “That’s the coordinates set.” the Doctor announced. “This should test whether the problem is with the Tardis or the journey itself. If nothing else, it will be a nice change to not attempt to land at the single most difficult place in the universe to land.”

            “Heathrow?” Adric prompted.

            “Yes.” replied the Doctor. “One rather wonders how aeroplane pilots manage it.” He pressed the lever until it was flush against the console. For a moment, nothing happened, then the central column moved slightly with its usual soft mechanical roar, and the console room shifted slightly towards the interior doors such that Adric and the Doctor needed to brace themselves against the console.

            “There.” The Doctor said proudly. “Smooth landing-”

 

As if to be contrary, the Tardis took this time to pitched wildly in the opposite direction, knocking both of them off of their feet. As they pulled themselves upright, the interior door was flung open and the other members of the crew ran into the console room.

            “Did we hit something or land somewhere?” asked Tegan.

            “Both, I think.” said Adric. As he dusted off his pants, Nyssa crossed to the console and looked at the readings.

            “Do we know where yet?” she asked.

            “I don’t know,” said Tegan, “But I’ll bet you a fiver it isn’t Heathrow.”

            “We weren’t aiming for Heathrow this time.” Adric frowned, looking up from the console. Tegan smiled.

            “That improves the odds.”

 

            While Adric frowned, Nyssa called up a preliminary scan.

“There’s a few life signs, but only the sort usually associated with a warren of rodents.” said Nyssa. “None of these readings suggest any sort of population, much less an industrialised society.”

“The atmosphere’s breathable for us, slightly more oxygen than the last place we landed.” Adric added. “But it’s only about ten degrees and precipitating slightly.”

            “It sounds pleasantly brisk.” the Doctor concluded. “Shall we have a look?”

 

            The scanner came to life and displayed a pristine snowscape. Everything was white except for a glorious, rust-coloured sunlight filtering through the laden tree branches. There were no animal tracks that could be seen in the scanner, but it looked like it would easily come up to Nyssa’s knees if she stepped into it, and a few glimmering flakes caught the sunlight as they fell.

            “That’s hardly what I would describe as ‘brisk’.” Adric mumbled, which was ignored.

            “It’s beautiful!” Tegan exclaimed. “It looks like a Christmas card!”

On either side of her, Adric and Nyssa whipped their heads about in confusion.

            “A what?” he asked.

            “A Christmas card.” the Doctor explained, launching into full lecturer mode. “A decorative letter sent by western Earth people during the nineteenth through twenty-second century to celebrate a popular midwinter celebration, usually a mix of secular and religious celebrations. The cards often depict winter scenes, such as snow and robins.”

            “Is snow common where you come from, Tegan?”

            “Only in the summer.” she replied. This did not answer any Nyssa’s questions about the midwinter holiday. "Even if we don't have snow for Christmas, it's still lovely. There's all the delicious food, big turkey dinners and puddings and biscuits, and games, and presents, of course, carol-singers... it's usually described as the best time of the year." 

            “It’s a time to spend with your family.” Tegan finished. She looked at the winterscape in the console and sighed sadly. Nyssa touched her arm gently.

            “You miss your family, don’t you Tegan?”

            “It doesn’t seem polite to mention it.” Tegan said quickly. “At least my family’s alive. I _will_ see them again, one day. But you… it’s not fair for me to talk about missing them. And Adric, why-“

            “I didn’t really know my parents at all.” said Adric. “The only family member I really knew was my brother, and he’s dead.” There was a short, uncomfortable silence where all of them watched the snow fall on the scanner.

            “What about your family, Doctor?” Tegan asked. The Doctor cleared his throat awkwardly.

            “Well, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can really do about your families,” he said uncomfortably. “But, if you’d like, we could have some of the holiday trappings. Go out and enjoy the snow a bit, get the blood pumping, and then come in to a warm heating unit and some tea and cocoa. I could probably even convince the food machine to produce something quite like a turkey dinner. Exchanging gifts might be difficult, it isn’t as if we’re to find a shopping mall on an unpopulated planet.”

            “When you say ‘enjoy the snow’..?” Adric began sceptically. The Doctor patted his shoulder.

            “I think we ought to find you some more watertight boots first.” the timelord smiled at his companions. “To the wardrobe room?”

 

 

            Only once they were in the snow did it occur to Tegan how rarely she saw her companions in different clothing. They did change their clothes occasionally, but whenever anything interesting happened they all seemed to be wearing the same clothes they were the last time something interesting happened.

            Nyssa had found her fur-lined vest and muff from Traken, as well as tall, fur trimmed boots and a burgundy Inverness coat which had only reached the knees of the Doctor’s third regeneration but was practically a dress on her. She looked quite elegant despite the fact her fur hat did look a little like a toasted marshmallow had been lodged on top of her head.

            Unwilling to give up his usual hat or total beigeness, the Doctor had donned a cream-coloured shearling coat and earmuffs. He had even found gloves striped much like his trousers, and other than that he looked very much unchanged.

            And then there was Adric. Apparently, he didn’t particularly care for the cold. He was bundled up so thickly the boy looked half again as wide as usual. He had found a rather ugly knit hat with a bobble on the end, leaving little more than his eyes exposed. There was definitely a long brown striped scarf somewhere in there, Tegan wasn’t sure where Adric had found that brown scarf or how many times it was wrapped around his body. Before putting on a reflective yellow parka. He was the only one wearing snowpants, probably because he was just small enough to fit into a child’s extra large.

            Tegan wasn’t sure what she thought about the legging and legwarmer look from a fashion standpoint, going right for a trend seemed silly in a time machine, but from a standing in the snow standpoint she was quite pleased with it, and with the large lavender down parka.

 

            Nyssa found it someone harder than usual to move through the knee-deep snow with any sort of grace, but seemed to be enjoying leaving a winding track behind her. To Tegan’s amusement, Adric was having far less luck. In fact, Adric bending over to dislodge one of his boots from the snow proved to be too tempting a target to be ignored. It was less the force of the blow as the surprise of having something cold and wet lobbed at his bottom sent Adric sprawling face-first into the snow.

            As he pulled himself to his feet, Adric cast roughly two inches of a furious glance behind him, where Tegan was brushing snow off of her gloves and looking ostentatiously innocent.

            “What did you do?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Nothing?” Adric repeated. “So you won’t mind if I do nothing to you?”

            The Alzarian swept up snow with both hands and patted it together. Unlike Adric, Tegan was quite capable of ducking. Nyssa was probably also capable of ducking, but she would have needed to know to do it first. She pulled her hands out of her muff and frowned at Adric.

            “Nyssa, I’m sorry, I was aiming at-“ Adric began, cut off by a small but precisely aimed snowball to the top of his head.

            “Now really, is this necessary?” the Doctor asked, as two more snowballs whizzed past him. “We were all having a fine time a just moment ago!”

            “I’m having a fine time now!” said Adric, aiming his next projectile at the Doctor and nearly knocking his hat off in the process.

            “Don’t do that!” the Doctor admonished, only to be struck by another snowball, this one lobbed by Tegan. He frowned slightly, brushing snow off of his arm.

            “Now this simply will not do. We are mature people capable of going into a snowfield without lobbing bits of the countryside at each other.” he muttered, collecting the snow off of his coat and packing it tightly.

            “Besides, if you want accuracy, you really must put a bit of a spin on it, like this-” he explained, hitting Tegan squarely in the chest.

            After that, it became very difficult to tell who was attempting to throw snow at who and whether or not they were having any luck with it, only that there was a great deal of snow and laughter in the air. In Adric’s case, _slightly_ hysterically.

 

            “Oh, Tegan!” Adric called triumphantly, holding a snowball half as large as his torso over his head. While there was little chance he would actually be able to throw it, Tegan found herself unable to resist the temptation to put her own hands on the snowball and break it on the top of Adric’s head.

            Everyone but Adric was quite amused by that.

 

 

            There was only so much the poor hat-stand hold up, but it was doing its best. Three hats, four coats, four gloves, three mittens (Adric had lost one while pulling himself out of the fourth snowbank) two scarves, and a muff dripped melting snow onto the console room floor.

Deep within the Tardis, the crew huddled in the comforting glow of a large space heater with cups of steaming drinks and an unusual disregard for personal space. The Doctor had insisted on his usual tea with only slightly more cream than usual, but Tegan took the opportunity to introduce the younger team members to hot cocoa, which had gone over splendidly. Adric was on his third cup and forty-fifth marshmallow.

            “Would you like me to top off your cocoa, Nyssa?” Adric offered.

            “Yes, please!” she replied, passing her cup. The Doctor nearly choked on his tea.

            “Are you alright, Doctor?” Tegan asked.

            “Sorry, I just had a terrifying thought.” said the Doctor. “One must be careful with that, there’s a reason I haven’t strewn poisonous berries around the place.”

 

            Tegan took another sip of her cocoa and attempted to stand up, surprised that she actually had to disentangle her left arm from behind both Adric and Nyssa.

            “Where are you going?” asked Adric, suddenly aware that there was now only one warm body pressed into his side.

            “I’m not going anywhere, I just wanted to grab something before none of us were able to move anymore.”

            “That won’t be happening for at least another half an hour.” the Doctor insisted. “The galley can produce most things from its component parts if you’ve got it programmed correctly, but it still takes time to assemble a turkey.”

            “And time to eat it.” Adric added.

            Tegan went into a corner of the room and picked up a stack of fabric which had until then been ignored.

            “I know we said we weren’t going to exchange gifts, but this isn’t really a gift…” said Tegan, “I found some jumpers in the wardrobe room and thought they would be cozy after getting all the snow off.”

            “Gift or not, it’s an excellent idea.” said the Doctor. He accepted his jumper and pulled it on. He had been expecting from the colour that it would be something similar to his usual cricket jumper but with a higher neck. The companions looked at each other and silently agreed no one would tell him about the snowman until he’d been wearing it for at least an hour.

            Nyssa pulled on the cardigan she had been handed, which was plum with sparkling snowflakes and large enough sleeves to fit over her velvet shirt.

            “It looks silly.” Adric whined, pulling down the front of his jumper to get a good look at the large star knit into the front.

            “That’s the point.” said Tegan, pulling on a jumper covered in Christmas trees. “There. It isn’t exactly a gift if I’m wearing one too, is it? We did say no gifts.”

            “Well, to be honest…” said Nyssa somewhat sheepishly. “I was going to be sharing these to all of you anyway, but there didn’t really seem an appropriate time to do it before now.” She reached into the pocket of her trousers and produced three tiny velvet bags. She passed them around the group.

            Tegan opened her bag and gasped softly. A few twinkling blue iridescent navette shaped crystals fell into her palm. She didn’t recognise what sort of stone it was, only that they were the most beautiful gems she’d ever held.

            “They’re synthetically grown crystals I made a few weeks ago. I accidently made far more than I needed. They’re excellent for short-range radio sets.”

            “Or earrings.” added Tegan looking at hers with delight.

            “Am I the only one who stuck to the ‘not exchanging gifts’ part of the agreement?” Adric asked helplessly. “We said not to, so I didn’t!”

            “It’s all right, Adric.” said the Doctor. “We did say no gifts, so no one expects you to have gotten them something.”

            “At least you didn’t go behind our backs and get presents, right Doctor?” Adric asked hopefully. The Doctor slipped a sheepish grin.

            “Well… there might be slightly more soft toys in your bedrooms than there were this morning.”

            “Soft toys?” asked Tegan. “Doctor, we aren’t children! At least I’m not.”

            “But I thought you liked koalas.” the Doctor sounded slightly wounded.

            “…it’s a different matter if it’s a koala.” Tegan attempted not to smile. 

 

           “I did hear you clearly, no gifts!” Adric protested weakly.

           “Yes, Adric, we know.” the Doctor replied. Adric bit his lips petulantly, part of him wondering if they had intended to make him look selfish for not thinking of this on his own. 

            “I- I- I’ll be right back!” Adric stuttered, dashing from the room.

            “Where’s he going?” asked Nyssa.

            “An all-night petrol station.” the Doctor replied dryly. “He’ll come back when he’s ready. No reason we can’t keep busy until then.”

            “We could sing carols.” Tegan suggested.

            “I don’t think I’ll be able,” said Nyssa. “I wouldn’t know any.”

            “Oh.”

            “I would like to, but I’d only heard about Christmas today.”

            “Well, this one’s easy, you just repeat what the Doctor or I say and we keep adding to the list.” offered Tegan. “The tune’s very simple. Just join in when you’re ready. _On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me-_ ”

 

 

            Nyssa caught on quickly, although the five gold rings threw her for a loop. Or a ring, depending on how one looked at it. Around the lords-a-leaping, Adric re-entered, holding three lunch-sized paper bags that looked like they had just been generated by the food machine. He handed them out, mumbling about “we _said_ we didn’t need gifts but no you went and got gifts”. Tegan opened hers and looked inside. It appeared to be two pounds of assorted sweets, and she suspected the others had the same. The Doctor then picked up the carol at on the exact word he’d left off on and popped a small red sucker in and out of his mouth all through the final two verses.

            “That was good fun,” said Nyssa brightly. “Are there any others that repeat like that?”

            “Uh… I can’t think of any…” the Doctor mused, sticking the lollipop back in his mouth.

            “Oh, I have one,” Tegan suggested. “It isn’t exactly the same sort of thing, but you do repeat the last word of every other line. Would you like to try that?”

            "Yes.” Nyssa smiled mischievously. “After all, Adric hasn’t had a chance to sing yet.” Adric didn’t say anything, but his expression clearly showed that he didn’t think being forced to sing was quite fair after he’d run out of the room to get her candy.

            “Right. It’s very simple. Just repeat the last word I said when I point at you. You too, Adric. _Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer…_ ” Tegan pointed at Nyssa.

            “ _Reindeer_.” Nyssa repeated uncertainly.

            “ _Had a very shiny nose._ _And if you ever saw it…”_ Tegan sang, waving her hand at the Doctor expectantly. There was a distinct and pregnant pause here, and it bothered Adric. Clearly, there was something that needed to be said, he simply didn’t know what it was.

            “ _You would even saw it glows.”_ the Doctor joined in without much enthusiasm.

            “Are reindeer usually phosphorescent?” asked Adric. The Doctor frowned at him.

            “ _All of the other reindeer…._ ”

            “ _Reindeer._ ” Nyssa obediently repeated.

            “ _Used to laugh and call him names…_ ”

            “I would have thought ‘Rudolph’ was bad enough as it was.”

            “ _They never let poor Rudolph…”_ Nyssa pinched Adric’s arm, but resulting in an “ouch!” where a “Rudolph” belonged.

            “ _Join in all their reindeer games…”_

            “But was he forced to, like when the Doctor forced us to all play cricket?”

 _“_ Adric! _Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say…”_

            “Are we supposed to know who that is?”

            “ _Rudolph with your nose so bright,”_

 _“Bright-_ Oh, was I not supposed to repeat that part?” asked Nyssa.

_“Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”_

_“Then all the reindeer loved him.”_

_“Loved him.”_

_“As they shouted out with glee.”_

            “I don’t know what a reindeer is, but apparently it glows, shouts, and plays cricket.” Adric mused. “It sounds terrifying.”

            “Adric!” the Doctor scolded.

            “I’m simply getting into that crisscrossed spirit Tegan was talking about!” Adric protested.

            “You know very well you’re not!” the Doctor snapped.

            As the row began, Tegan leaned back in her chair. Family arguments were another part of Christmas she had come to expect. In the end, Tegan supposed, she had been able to spend Christmas with her family after all. It simply hadn’t been the family she expected.


End file.
